Main navigation

Kinneir Dufort designs the first official case for global micro-computer giant Raspberry Pi

16.06.15

Kinneir Dufort have today unveiled that our team has been working closely with the Raspberry Pi Foundation on their first official case over a year.

The wonderful foundation is a UK charity based in Cambridge which creates and distributes affordable credit-card sized computers (the Raspberry Pi) that plugs into your TV and keyboard.

The small single-board computer, designed to inspire and teach young people how to programme, has taken the world by storm and has not only gained mass appeal from schools around the world, but has developed a huge community of followers.

Following plenty of ideas, matched with a surplus of challenges and the benefit of being able to manufacture prototypes in-house at Kinneir Dufort, John Cowan-Hughes said the end result retains the integrity of the initial concept and he is intrigued as to how users will begin using and customising the product, which you can see in action here.

John Cowan-Hughes one of Kinneir Dufort’s Senior Industrial Designers, said they were thrilled to be involved with the production of the first official case for such an iconic and educational product.

At Kinneir Dufort we believe in the value and power of collaboration, and work closely with client teams and end users throughout the design process. With the Raspberry Pi 2 case this was particularly relevant because the Raspberry Pi Foundation is all about engagement with a broad community of current and future users. The product oozes the personality and enthusiasm of the Raspberry Pi team, so we felt from the start that closely involving them in the design of the Raspberry Pi 2 case would result in a better product that was true to the ethos of the brand.

The case arrives hot on the heels of the new Raspberry Pi 2 board and given Raspberry Pi’s imaginative, varied and tech savvy user-base, many tweaks, hacks and alterations of the case are expected to quickly surface online and among Raspberry Pi’s global fan base.

The ABS plastic case is produced in the UK and, like the boards, are also manufactured in the UK – something John said Raspberry Pi were keen to guarantee.

The design team we wanted for this pivotal project had to have an understanding of what Raspberry Pi was all about, an enthusiasm for helping us realise our vision and a wealth of experience we could depend upon. Kinneir Dufort delivered across all points of the brief. The case is clever, playful and like the Pi 2 board it will encourage people to experiment with it. It looks pretty awesome too.